Examining the applicability of Location Based Services to determine the movement patterns of commuters between Sandton and Park station in Johannesburg City

M.Tech. (Operations Management)Abstract: The movement of people within cities follows patterns that continuously change due to a variety of reasons that among others include innovations and development of transport systems and socio-economic factors. Just like any other fast growing cities mostly in transitional and developing Worlds, the City of Johannesburg has been witnessing massive transformations in urban public transport systems in the past decade. However, there is a paucity of studies about the movement patterns of commuters particularly between micro city centres in transitional and developing countries. Given the multiplicity of modes and centres in increasingly decentralized cities such as the Johannesburg Metropolitan City, investigating and illuminating novel insights about the movement patterns of commuters has become imperative and essential. The study aims to examine the applicability of Location Based Services (LBS) to determine the movement patterns of commuters between Sandton and Park station micro city centres, within the City of Johannesburg (COJ). The work adopted a case study research design where three research approaches consisting of qualitative, quantitative and spatial approaches were applied to gather textual, statistical and locational data respectively that explains the nature of movement between the two micro centres within COJ. The research findings revealed that LBS is applicable to illuminate movement patterns of urban public transport commuters. Through the use of LBS, distinct movement patterns emerged between Sandton and Park Station micro centres. However, their movement patterns change from time to time and sometimes they extend beyond the two micro city centres. It was also revealed that LBS needs to be supported by other methods such as questionnaires and interviews to give a comprehensive and complete picture about the movement patterns between micro centres. Consequently, it is very important to use assorted research approaches to determine movement patterns of urban public transport commuters, and thus would be effective in informing policies and frameworks aimed at improving urban public transport systems. In addition, LBS also revealed the complexity of spatial and communicative platforms in a multiplicity of urban public modes resulting in complex models of movement patterns. Moreover, there is a need to apply LBS and supporting methods in determining movement patterns of commuters with the aim of corroborating the prospects of creating an urban movement pattern model on a city-wide scale